Campus Chatter – July 9, 2018

An estimated 1000 people died as a magnitude 8.6 earthquake triggered a tsunami near Sendai, Japan today (869). Also, Charles IV laid the foundation stone for Prague’s Charles Bridge (1357), Henry VIII annulled his marriage to his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves (1540), the 19 Martyrs of Gorkum were hanged in the Dutch village of Brielle (1572), George Washington ordered the Declaration of Independence to be read aloud to Continental Army troops in New York City (1776), the National Constituent Assembly began work on France’s first constitution (1789), the Act Against Slavery passed in Upper Canada, now Ontario, prohibiting the importation of slaves into Lower Canada, now Québec (1793), David Thompson posted a sign at the confluence of the Columbia and Snake Rivers in what is now Washington state, claiming the land for Britain (1811), Argentina declared independence (1816), President Zachary Taylor died and Vice President Millard Fillmore became our 13th President, on the same day the prophet Báb was executed in Tabriz, Persia (1850), the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified (1868), the first Wimbledon Championships tournament began (1877), Victoria gave royal assent to the act creating a unified Australia (1900), 101 people died in the Great Train Wreck in Nashville, Tennessee, the deadliest rail accident in U.S. history (1918), Johnny Weissmuller broke the ‘minute barrier,’ swimming the 100 meters freestyle in 58.6 seconds (1922), the state of São Paulo revolted against Brazilian dictator Getúlio Vargas in the Constitutionalist Revolution (1932), Bertrand Russell released the Russell-Einstein Manifesto highlighting the dangers of nuclear weapons (1955), a magnitude 8.3 earthquake triggered a landslide that caused a 1720-foot megatsunami in Lituya Bay, Alaska, the largest wave in recorded human history (1958), Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans Exhibition opened in Los Angeles (1962), Nintendo’s Mario character premiered in Donkey Kong (1981), the New Zealand Parliament decriminalized LGBTs (1986), Iranian police raided dormitories and arrested students protesting at the University of Tehran (1990), Iran claimed to have tested a long-range Shahab-3 missile in the Great Prophet III war games exercise (2008), and South Sudan gained independence (2011). And six people including four children were killed when a gunman attacked his ex-wife’s family in Harris County, Texas (2014).